A broad daylight assault involving two female suspects and one female victim who may be unhoused has neighbors on Shotwell Street newly complaining about the rampant sex trade happening there.
As we've heard since the city put up traffic barriers on a couple of blocks of Capp Street a year ago, the street-level sex-work activity on that street has disappeared. But as many predicted it would, the sex-work didn't go away, it just moved a couple of blocks over to Shotwell Street, where it continues to this day.
But a weekend assault that was caught on camera by a neighbor on Shotwell is causing renewed outrage about the lawlessness on the street, and the lack of policing in general.
As KRON4 reports, via the witness who made the video, the assault occurred allegedly after two suspected sex workers were looking into the windows of a woman's car while she was inside it. The victim apparently got out of her car to confront the women.
"Then they got into a verbal conflict and when the woman got out of the car, the women beat her up," the witness tells KRON4.
The woman called 911 and police soon arrested a suspect a few blocks away, who was identified as a 24-year-old woman from Fairfield. She was booked on a charge of aggravated assault.
District 9 supervisor candidate Trevor Chandler has used the video to do some campaigning about law and order, saying on X, "Shotwell neighbors have raised the alarm for years about increasing violence from sex trafficking on their street but have regularly been ignored... I’m incredibly disturbed at the lack of seriousness from City Hall on this."
Chandler adds, speaking to KRON4, that the SFPD should be deterring the sex trade entirely by arresting and citing pimps and johns.
"First is we actually have true penalties for the johns and the pimps. Because we are so understaffed in our police department we don’t have the coverage to fully staff our human trafficking and sex trafficking divisions," Chandler says. "That’s what fully staffing our police departments will get us." He also tells KTVU that he supports installing license-plate readers in the neighborhood as a further deterrent.
Shotwell neighbors have raised the alarm for years about increasing violence from sex trafficking on their street but have regularly been ignored.
— Trevor Chandler 陳澤維 (@Trevor4SF) March 31, 2024
This most recent assault happened in broad daylight, I’m incredibly disturbed at the lack of seriousness from City Hall on this. pic.twitter.com/JigIbdDBaB
The neighbor who shot the video, who wanted to remain anonymous, told KTVU, "What we’ve heard is, we don’t have enough [police] staffing, it’s not a priority. My feeling is at least manage it, and move it to a non-residential neighborhood."
London Breed's office issued a vague statement to KTVU after the assault, saying that with regard to deterrents and policing, "all options are on the table, including the strategic placement of public safety cameras, street and other physical environment changes, and of course, increased enforcement as well."
Sex work in the neighborhood has been going on for decades, as many long-time residents attest. But another neighbor raising alarms after this attack, Ayman Farahat, says that this instance of violence is not isolated.
"This is not an issue about sex workers, this is an issue about safety," Farahat tells KTVU. "What happened is not an accident. Right before that, there was like one person who was attacked two days ago. There was another person who was attacked. This just happened to be the one that was on tape."
